The IEEE Gujarat section is one of the small and most important one in the Asia-Pacific region. If for no other reason than that Mahatma Gandhi was a Gujarati by birth, and had spearheaded the Indian Freedom Struggle from his ashram at Ahmedabad where the IEEE Gujarat Section is headquartered.

IEEE activities in Gujarat first started in 1988 at the city of Vadodara (earlier known as Baroda), when first unit of IEEE student branch was established at the Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Technology & Engineering, M.S.University. Dr. A. K. Aggarwal was the first Branch Counselor. Mr. J. S. Negi, the then Chief Executive of M/s Jyoti Ltd, had taken the initiative for submitting the petition for forming the Vadodara Sub-Section under the Bombay Section. IEEE accepted the petition and the Vadodara sub-section was formed with Mr. J. S. Negi as the interim Chair in the year 1988.

Later IEEE agreed to change the name of the entity to Gujarat Sub-section. On 15th August 1990 the Sub-section was upgraded to a full fledged Section to take its place as one among the 300 sections in the world spread out over 150 countries. The IEEE Gujarat University Student Branch was the next student branch unit established in 1994. The IEEE Gujarat Section was carved out from the IEEE Bombay Section mainly for logistic reasons.

Gujarat Section was first brought to international attention in 1997 with the holding a twin conference on’ Internet Security’ and EEE in the petroleum sector both downstream and upstream. This twin conference was held in the premises of the Institute of Reservoir Studies of the ONGC. Prominent IEEE figures who attended included Dr. Charles Rubenstein then the editor of the IEEE Transactions in Engineering Management. The conference was followed by the visit of the Technical Activities Board (TAB) of the IEEE led by President IEEE Dr. Kenneth Laker, President-Elect Dr. Mike Adler, Mr. Pete(Wes) Spencer a Power Utilities owner, Mrs. Mary Ward-Callan the Managing Director of the TAB and Ms. Fanny Su Behn Hoi of the IEEE Region 10 HQ at Singapore. Dr. Vijay Bhargava, the then candidate for the post of the President IEEE Communications Society and Mrs. Laker also accompanied the group. On this occasion, a student branch was inaugurated at the Nirma Institute of Technology.

Gujarat Section has always been pioneer in organizing programs for professional and students. Its annual event ‘Sampark’ gives a platform to student members to design IEEE events of the year as per their own need and requirement. This helps IEEE student members of the Section to be their own leader. ‘Sampark’ had also been featured in one of the issue of ‘The Institute’.

Currently IEEE Gujarat Section has six chapters covering nine of the IEEE societies and 12 IEEE Student Branches.

Past Chairs of the Section

Following is the list of past chairs of the Gujarat Section who contributed to give a definite shape to this section:

Mr Arup Dasgupta and Mr Mayank M Pande, past chairs of IEEE Gujarat Section contributed a lot in establishing the section and positioning it globally. Mr Nirbhay Chaubey, the past Treasurer (2008-09) of the section, helped all contemporary chairs in structuring and expanding the section. It was the immediate past Chair Mr. Deepak Mathur’s tenure when Gujarat Section actually made a dent at Region and HQ level both.

The Gujarat Section has around 600 members as per the statistics on the closing of year 2008, of which around 350 are student members, 30 are senior members and 1 Fellow.

SAMPARK (Reach out and engage)

This is a unique model of Gujarat Section for engaging student members. It started in 2006 under the guidance of Mr. Deepak Mathur, the then Chair of the IEEE Gujarat Section and Dr. Anil K Roy, the then Vice Chair.

Gujarat section was a small section at that time (we had over 200 students members only at that time), but our spirit was big.

We observed that a) Engagement of the volunteers, b) Value creation for the members and c) Empowerment by the section had been the points of concern for any section. You miss out on any of these and membership makes a nosedive as these are interwoven. We designed an experiment. In this we let the members decide themselves their wish-list:

What they want (list)?

Why they want (debate)?

When they want (prioritize)?

Whom they want (preference)?

This results into annual planning of each student branch. This event we call 'SAMPARK'.

Gujarat Section has been experimenting to achieve all these uniquely since last 10 years. Our student members organize an annual event named 'Sampark', meaning 'contact' in the year beginning. Old, new and potential student members gather together. ExCom members of the section, senior members and other professional members come to guide these bubbling volunteers and future engineers.

Full day they share their need, their experience with IEEE, what did they like and didn't, what are their expectations from the section. They share their successes and failures too. How do they plan and how do they execute? What are the best practices that yielded good dividend. It comprises of fun games, team building exercise, brainstorming and ultimately an open-house with ExCom of the section. It gets concluded by Section’s major actionable plan and felicitation of extraordinary volunteers.

The results of SAMPARK's synergy have been awesome. Now we have over 800 student members, 25 student branches (as against 5 in 2006) and 9 chapters (as against 2 in 2006). Gujarat Section's visibility increased multifold. Our volunteers received many awards and recognitions.

Our message is: WANT SYNERGY, ADOPT SAMPARK.

IEEE Gujarat Section has been organizing this annual event since last 10 years. The first Sampark was organized in 2006 in Gandhinagar. Subsequently it was organized at AMA, Ahmedabad (2007); ADIT Auditorium, VV Nagar (2008); Indroda Park, Gandhinagar (2009); Science City, Ahmedabad (2010); Greenwoods Resort, Ahmedabad (2011); Science City, Ahmedabad (2012), GCET Auditorium, VV Nagar (2013); Marwadi College, Rajkot (2014). In 2015 it is being organized in the campus of Shankersinh Vaghela Bapu Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar. This is one of the most unique events organized for the students and by the students with a tagline "Reach Out and Engage". This gives all student branches an opportunity to interact with other members of the section, to learn the best practices form other student branches, to plan for the year in tandem and to demand from the section.

About Gujarat

Gujarat state is one of the India’s most progressive states as on date. It houses the Indian Institute of Management, National Institute of Design, Institute of Plasma Research, Physical Research Laboratory, Space Application Centre of ISRO, Centre for Environment Education, CEPT, National Institute of Fashion Technology, Institute of Rural Management (IRMA) inter alia.